Part 3 (2/2)
Picard didn't remember Edward Jellico looking so old. In the scant months since Jellico had ascended to Starfleet's top flag office, he seemed to have aged a decade. His already white hair had thinned, and the lines in his face had deepened into gorges carved by the never-ending anxieties of command. More alarming to Picard was that he sympathized with how he imagined Jellico must feel. Standing in the ready room of a captain less than half his years, Picard felt like a relic of a bygone age.
Captain Dax replied, ”Admiral, are you saying that Starfleet has no new orders for us?”
”Not unless one of you has a bright idea,” Jellico said.
The two captains traded apprehensive looks across Dax's desk. Picard looked back at Jellico's visage on the monitor and said, ”We're still weighing our options.”
Dax interjected, ”Should we set a course for Earth, sir?”
Jellico shook his head. ”You won't make it in time. You're four days away. The Borg'll be here in twelve hours.”
”Actually, sir,” Dax said, ”my chief engineer tells me she can bring our prototype slipstream drive online within a few hours. There's a chance we could beat the Borg to Earth.”
Holding up one hand, Jellico replied, ”One more s.h.i.+p won't turn the tide, Captain. We're past that now.”
Picard tried to mask his profound frustration, but hints of it slipped into his tone all the same. ”Admiral, certainly Starfleet hasn't conceded the war already?”
”Of course not, Jean-Luc. We've distributed the schematics for the transphasic torpedo to all s.h.i.+ps and starbases, and we've given it to the Klingon Defense Force.” Dax glanced nervously at Picard as Jellico continued, ”It might be too little too late, but we're not going down without a fight.”
”Admiral,” Dax said, ”isn't it dangerous to send those schematics via subs.p.a.ce with so many Borg s.h.i.+ps in the region? What if they've intercepted and decoded them?”
A frown thinned Jellico's lips almost to the point of making them vanish.
”It was a calculated risk,” he confessed. ”It's not what I wanted to do or the way I wanted to do it...but at this point, not doing it is tantamount to surrender. I gave the order to override Admiral Nechayev's security directive. If it turns out to be the wrong call, there's no one to blame but me.”
Hearing such humility from Jellico surprised Picard. He didn't know whether it was because Jellico, having reached the top of the Starfleet career ladder, had finally relaxed or because crisis brought out the most human facets of his persona.
”Admiral,” he said, ”with your permission, I'd like to take the Enterprise and the Aventine back into the nebula to search for survivors from the expeditionary group. We've confirmed that half of Voyager's crew is still alive; there may be others.”
Jellico nodded. ”By all means, Captain. Proceed at your discretion. But make certain you have an exit strategy.”
Again, the admiral's pessimistic turn of phrase captured Picard's attention. ”An exit strategy?”
”Jean-Luc, if Earth falls...” Jellico choked on his words for a moment, and then he continued, ”If Earth falls, the war's pretty much over. The fighting might go on for a few more weeks, but the Federation as we know it will be gone. If it comes to that, take your s.h.i.+p and anyone you can carry, and try to get to safety. Don't launch some quixotic mission to liberate the Federation, because there'll be nothing left. Just save your s.h.i.+p and your crew.” A melancholy gloom settled in his eyes. ”Don't die for a lost cause, Jean-Luc.”
Then he blinked away the sentiment and added, ”Wish us luck, Captains. G.o.dspeed to you both. Starfleet Command out.”
The Federation emblem replaced Jellico's face on the desktop monitor. Dax deactivated the screen and sighed. ”Nothing like a pep talk from headquarters to boost morale.” She stood and turned to her replicator. ”I'm having a raktajino. Can I get you something?”
”Tea, Earl Grey, hot,” Picard said.
She turned to the replicator and said, ”Raktajino, hot and sweet, and an Earl Grey tea, hot.” The drinks formed in a whorl of golden light and white noise. When the machine had finished, she took the drinks from the nook and handed the tea to Picard.
He took a sip and savored the bitter flavor. ”Thank you.”
”You're welcome,” she said, easing back into her chair and taking a sip of her caffeinated Klingon beverage. ”Sorry to hear about your ready room.”
”Not as sorry as I am,” Picard said. He enjoyed another sip of his tea, then added, ”We should set course back to the nebula as soon as possible.”
Dax said, ”All right, but I don't think we're going to find many survivors beyond the Voyager crew.”
”Perhaps not,” Picard murmured, even as he was distracted by an awareness of something new-something different-s.h.i.+ning in his thoughts like a beacon in the darkness of mere being. ”But we need to get under way, soon. There's something there, and I need to know what it is.”
Slowly shaking her head, Dax replied, ”If you say so. I just hate feeling like we're running for cover when everyone else is fighting for their lives.”
”Running for cover?” Picard said.
She called up a short-range starmap overlaid with tactical data about the Borg armada's deployment into the surrounding sectors. Pointing at the Azure Nebula, Dax said, ”It's the eye of the storm, Jean-Luc. All Borg s.h.i.+ps are moving away from it. It's the safest spot in known s.p.a.ce.”
He studied the star chart and nodded. ”Indeed. Which makes it the ideal location from which to plan our next move.”
”I wasn't aware that we had a next move,” Dax said.
The sense that something was drawing him back to the nebula intensified. ”We don't-at least, not yet. But I have a feeling that's about to change.”
7.
Walking through darkened corridors, Riker felt like a shade haunting his own s.h.i.+p. Two hours after returning to Federation s.p.a.ce, most of t.i.tan was still without main power. The bridge and the main computer were back online, but little else was.
He turned a corner into a small stampede of pressure-suited bodies and was forced to step clear of the team of damage-control engineers, who were quick-timing it to their next crisis du jour. All the way down from the bridge, from deck to deck and from one emergency ladder to another, Riker had seen similar frantic scrambles of activity by the s.h.i.+p's engineers.
They're earning their pay today, he mused.
”Ra-Havreii to Captain Riker,” said the chief engineer, the richness of his voice flattened by being filtered through Riker's combadge.
Riker stepped to the side of the pa.s.sage and stopped. ”Good to hear your voice. Are all comms back up?”
”No, sir,” Ra-Havreii replied. ”I'm talking to you from the shuttlecraft Gillespie. We're currently routing all s.h.i.+pboard comms through the shuttles' transceivers.”
”Good thinking,” Riker said. ”Can we use them to get a signal to Starfleet Command?”
Ra-Havreii said, ”Not yet, but soon. I'm interplexing their comm systems now to boost their range. I expect to have it ready in a few minutes. But that's not why I hailed you, sir.”
Stepping down a short, dead-end side pa.s.sage for a bit of additional privacy, Riker said, ”What's on your mind?”
”We have some fairly systemic damage in a number of critical areas, Captain,” Ra-Havreii said. ”Without main power, we can't replicate new parts-but without replacement parts, we can't restore main power. So I need your permission to acquire the necessary components, sir.”
<script>